We wargamed everything except the Kamikaze... or the enemy's transition from offense to defense will produce incredible innovation...

Kamikaze's, Baka Bombs, and Cherry Blossoms

                       Flowers of the special attack are falling

                          When the spring is leaving

                          Gone with the Spring

                          Are young boys like cherry blossoms

                          Leaving cherry trees only with leaves.[1]

           Leading up to the planning for the defense of Okinawa, the Japanese began recognizing the materiel superiority of the Americans and acknowledging their lack of materiel support and control of the air and sea domains. The Japanese still owned a battle-tested land army made up of 5,000,000 veterans.[2] Along with this human capability, the Japanese refused to concede their perceived spiritual preeminence, the source of the perceived superiority of the Japanese soldier compared to his American counterpart. Thus, the Japanese channeled their Bushido warrior code and spirit of self-sacrifice into using individuals to operate platforms, planes, rockets, boats, and individual swimmers, while they preserved their large land formations for attrition of American forces. 

           In October of 1944, the Japanese commander of the First Air Fleet in the Philippines, Vice Admiral Taijiro Onishi, organized a special attack unit (tokkotai) consisting of young men willing to fly their airplanes into American ships.[3] The results indicated that this was an effective method due to a small number of Kamikaze planes inflicting almost as much damage on the American fleet as Admiral Kurita's fleet in the biggest naval battle in history.[4] A few months later, as the American fleet supported the fight on Iwo Jima, small groups of Kamikaze pilots sank an escort carrier and severely damaged the carrier Saratoga.

           These attacks led Admiral Toyoda, who commanded all Japanese air forces in the East China Sea, to concentrate large numbers of airframes on Kyushu and Formosa to converge on the U.S. Military forces around Okinawa.[5] This convergence of assets led to massed waves of kamikaze attacks. The first of these waves struck on April 6 and inflicted a "distressing amount of damage."[6] A chart constructed to depict these attacks[7] showed the non-linear operational area of Okinawa. The Japanese attacked U.S. Navy ships in all cardinal directions in the island's littorals and near sub-objectives on the smaller islands that orbit Okinawa.

           The number of aircraft used dramatically increased the probability of a ship getting hit during the Battle for Okinawa. After-action reports showed that some ships were attacked by up to 50-planes, with as many as nine hits reported.[8] This accuracy was due to the projectiles guided by human pilots rather than simply dropping inert torpedoes or bombs. With the losses of experienced pilots in the Battle of the Leyte Gulf and other engagements, the Japanese found that even inexperienced pilots were able "to make corrections and to take evasive actions – feats which no ordinary bomb can perform."[9]

           Unique to the Okinawa operation, the Japanese designed an air weapon specifically for suicide pilots, a piloted rocket bomb.[10] The Baka had a 2400-pound warhead and an airspeed indicator calibrated for 600 knots; therefore, the Baka was both deadly and capable of high speeds. Its range was only 30-35 miles; however, it moved to its objective attached to the fuselage of bigger planes called Betty's.[11] Reports from Okinawa indicated that a puff of brown smoke usually presaged its release from its escort. The Baka often appeared invisible, except for the brown smoke trailing it to its target.

           The Japanese use of suicide tactics in the air gave them numerous advantages. First, the Japanese doubled their operational reach in which they could target ships and ground-based supply and command nodes because there was no return flight. Second, the guided nature of the planes and Baka bombs allowed the Japanese to possess a guided missile capability before the technology existed to enable it. Thus, their sense of morality in the war gave them an edge in developing asymmetries to combat American materiel dominance. Third, they could use less-skilled flyers, particularly in some training aircraft, while saving more experienced flyers for the piloted missiles. This matching of pilots to equipment was necessary because of the loss of experienced aviators; thus, the quality of equipment and personnel should be aligned since there was not enough quality in either materiel or airmen.

           Japanese leaders also sought to inflict further damage on the American landing forces through piloted suicide boats and torpedoes, suicide swimmers, and lunge mines used against tanks by individual soldiers. The captured narrative from a talk given to Japanese Soldiers that were part of a suicide unit for use against tanks gives a new direction for self-sacrifice. "It is imperative that all troops have a thorough understanding of tactics of a suicidal nature, with each man destroying a plane, ship or tank to smash the enemy who depends on materiel superiority."[12] American momentum produced a significant change in Japanese posture in the Central Pacific Theater and manifested in Okinawa. Japanese military leadership expended human-delivered bombs against materiel targets. Still, they preserved their infantry formations for a war of attrition, anchored in one of the most formidable defense arrays in history.

[1] Hara, Japanese Destroyer Captain, 259; Russell Spurr, A Glorious Way to Die: The Kamikaze Mission of the Battleship Yamato, April 1945 (New York: Newmarket Press, 1981), 109.

[2] Craig L. Symonds, World War II at Sea: A Global History. Oxford University Press, 2018, 618.

[3] Craig L. Symonds, World War II at Sea, 619.

[4] Ibid., 587, 619. 

[5] Morrison, Victory in the Pacific, 181.

[6] Ibid., 181.

[7] Ibid., 183.

[8] CINCPAC-CINCPOA Bulletin 126-45, 4.

[9] Ibid., 3.

[10] Ibid., 13.

[11] Ibid. 

[12] CINCPAC-CINCPOA Bulletin 126-45, 36.